Status of Women Flashcards
Before 1949
Subservient role in society.
Birth of daughter often resulted in infanticide.
Arranged marriages common.
Many shared husband with concubine (mistress for sexual favors) whilst the wife carried out the chores.
3 obedience’s: father –> husband –> sons.
Girls not provided with educational opportunity.
1930s, 1% female over age of 7yrs had basic literacy skills compared to 30% males.
Mao’s View on Women
From an early age, Mao had been critical of the subservient role of women in Chinese society + politics.
CCP viewed women as indispensable.
Mao - “women hold up half the sky”.
1949, Clause Six of the Communist Common Program = equal treatment with men politically, culturally, educationally, socially, and economically.
Family as a basic social unit was destroyed, embodied Confucianism.
Foot Binding
Designed to stunt growth (3 inches), physically crippled women.
Small feet = sexually appealing.
Feet bound at 2yrs old, toes turned under her feet and held tightly by wound bandage.
Marriage Law
1950.
Arranged marriages = indirect rape.
Concubinage + arranged marriages banned.
Husbands + wives = equal status in home.
Wife could inherit husbands property.
Divorce easier, 1m in 1st yr.
Concubinage and polygamy outlawed.
Effects of Marriage Law
Increased divorce rates, husbands lost what seemed to be a financial investment.
Violence in poorer families as armed mobs attempted to violently reclaim divorced wives.
Property rights eventually lost during collectivization, mid-1950s.
1960s, arranged marriages became rare.
Collectivization & Communes
Land: private ownership –> state ownership.
Marriage Law property rights became irrelevant with commune system.
Women forced to work the land and were still responsible for domestic chores.
Forced to do tasks physically ill-suited tasks - ploughing fields.
Children in communal kindergartens - poor, dirty conditions & staff poorly trained.
Disease + death rife.
Late 1950s famine, communes provided women with little food, many turned to prostitution to buy food, or committed suicides.
Food provided off work points - amount of physical labor performed. Disadvantaged.
Sexual abuse in communes rife.
Expected mothers forced to work through pregnancy often resulting in miscarriages.
Women’s Association
03/1949.
Encouraged political activism amongst women.
Official membership of 76m.
Campaigned against prostitution + domestic violence.
Encouraged women to confront + denounce men who had beaten their wives.
Education
More daughters sent to school.
Previously, no incentive to send them, soon left home, parents received no economic benefit.
Girls completed primary education, 1929-49 =38%, 1959 = 100%
1959, 45% of primary school children were girls.
Military Service
PLA encouraged young women to join.
Opportunity to escape rural poverty and possibly be promoted to officer rank - degree of status unheard of before 1949.
Improvement in Women’s Status
Women escaped unhappy marriages via divorce.
Party cadres courted, improving economic security and social opportunities.
1949-76, proportion of women in workforce 8% to 32%, but represented <1/3 of labor force.
Opportunity to publicly declare an opinion, empowering.
More politicized during Cultural Revolution.
Wore Maoist uniform = sense of equality.
Women like Jiang Qing could rise to hold leadership roles in the Party.
Maoist propaganda challenged traditional gender views.
Ballet - Red Detachment of Women - glorified women as heroes fighting in the Civil War
Problems with Changing Traditional Views
Traditional male attitudes slow to change - domestic work & childcare = women’s work.
Many party cadres shared traditional views of women, not enforcing legislations like the New Marriage Law.
Ding Ling complained women still weren’t treated equally by fellow communists.
Arranged marriages + foot binding continued in remote areas - Xingjiang.
